


reliquary for two

by altilis



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6959389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An imperator swears to his emperor. A senator corrupts a Jedi Knight. Hux tries to keep Kylo from going mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reliquary for two

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to everyone on tumblr who listened to me as I was writing this fic, and loads of love to [sullacat](http://sullacat.tumblr.com) who read through the rough draft when it was still rough and thin.
> 
> Art (shown at the bottom) by [growtear](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Growtear/pseuds/Growtear)/[aw16st](http://aw16st.tumblr.com/).

He hasn't slept in days.

Kylo plods through the decrepit black hall, cobwebs and tattered fabric clinging to the window arches, while Hux walks half a pace behind him. The ash on the ground scuffs his boots, like always, and the frigid mountain breeze sweeps in from between carved obsidian pillars to bite at his cheek. This must be the twenty-fifth or thirtieth holocron he’s fetched for Snoke, holding it tight in the crook of his arm, but the first that he’s loathe to give up. The visions and nightmares distract him still; he shouldn’t have activated it—

_The obsidian hall filled with light and luxury, the walls draped with embroidered tapestries of gold and glittering gems. A crowd of well-dressed nobles mingle across the tiled floor, sipping from carved antler cups and eating little bites of preserved meat and pink sliced pickles. At the far dais sits an onyx throne, carved with charts of a thousand systems, and in a long white robe sewn with silver sits—_

Kylo stumbles, gasping, and stops short; Hux bumps into his shoulder—

_The hall is dark, the walls charred from ancient fires and time. Ash on the walls, ash beneath his boots, the stale scent of charcoal and old mud, and amongst the rubble a single fire from scavenged firewood. A figure in brown wool sits huddled up against the heat, curled around something, before it lifts his head and looks over—_

“Hux.” The whisper escapes his throat. Hux grabs him tight by the elbow and moves into view, snapping him back to the present.

“What is it?” Hux asks. "Them again?"

* * *

Twenty thousand years before nightmares and visions and masters looming in the shadows, while treasure hunting in the desolate corners of the galaxy, Imperator Hux does not shoulder regrets in his life.

He does not regret being seven years young and volunteering for the imperial palace (to get away from his father’s belt); he does not regret running headlong into a young black-haired prince and telling him he was in the wrong; he does not regret telling him so the second, third, and fourth time, when finally he had heard that prince’s laugh at his boldness.

The howling blizzard bites at his cheeks as he trudges through the snow, the uneven footsteps of his squad stumbling along behind him, _kch kch-kch_.

He doesn’t regret training with the elite guard inside the citadel; he doesn’t regret pushing himself so hard and so far that despite his slight frame and lean muscle he had earned a spot at the prince’s side in his court. That training had hurt more than this, the cold in his lungs and the ache in his thighs.

Above all else he does not regret stolen nights in his prince’s chambers, watching him study under the torch light in the deep winter; he does not regret watching his prince train across frosted courtyards or under the blazing dry sun; he does not regret being beckoned to stand watch over a warm bath with golden taps and the gentle aroma of crushed lilac blossoms that lingered on his skin for days.

The memory of the prince’s kiss on his forehead has kept Hux warm for weeks; it keeps him warm now, when he thinks the cold is creeping into his blood, into his soul. That had been the coronation, when the Imperator’s prince had turned into the emperor, shedding his simpler name and becoming Kylo, the First of His Name.

While the Imperator does not regret, he—he dwells on the memories of evening in that lofty bed chamber, watching the emperor drop studded ruby brooches on the dresser and comb out his thick black hair, always making conversation far too late before night's watch (for the Imperator had his duties to the office, too, as well as the man). His memories linger especially on how Kylo’s fingers had been slow to release his arm, how his wavering voice had asked him to stay.

We don't have forever, Kylo had said, and the Imperator thought he knew the meaning of fleeting happiness.

A few months of routine bliss, of being at Kylo's elbow to hear his secrets and frustrations while servants peeled off heavy royal silks (a perfect cream sholder; the exquisite curve of his back), before Kylo’s vizier Plageuis unfurled the scroll during morning court: a marriage announcement. From then time had swept by him like the white rush of hyperspace: the desert queen, fair and kind and plain and naive; the engagement dinner; watching tense conversations and long walks through the courtyards from the stairs of the mezzanine, blaming the chill in his gut on the autumn descending on the mountains.

The closed door of Kylo’s chambers.

But Imperator Hux does not shoulder regrets—it is what makes him one of the emperor’s most efficient imperators, one of the most direct executors of his imperial will. That steel resolve is why he is here, battling the snow and ice, chasing a lead built on a local ghost story, trying to find a wedding gift worthy of his emperor.

The Imperator remembers a kiss at his cheek, red lips outlined in maroon and sparkling gold, and he yearns for another.

\--

Jedi Council meetings aren’t any more interesting than Senator Hux Arkanis’s usual subcommittees: there’s a lot of talking by a handful of elders, self-important and omniscient, there’s little room for original thinking, and all he can do is watch. However, the council room is ringed by windows and bathed in light, and on warm afternoons like this, attention is an incredible challenge.

“But something strong  _has_ disturbed the Force, Luan, and even if it is intermittent I believe that it is worth investigating as something more than a natural phenomenon.”

“And how many Knights should investigate this, Starkiller? The Rim is distant, and frankly, inconsequential; maybe these are only shifts in the Force in the wake of new colonies.”

"Or it may be the Sith, if these signatures are to be believed."

"You have to be joking."

Sometimes Arkanis looks out the window at Coruscant and thinks - as he runs his hand through his red hair - about where to have dinner, or what he should send his mother for her birthday, or how he should start his next communique to his home planet. He feels the urge to yawn, doesn't, and commends himself on control. Not that the Jedi would have noticed. 

Except today Jedi Master Starkiller shifts in his chair and turns his wrinkled old eyes on Arkanis and says in a deceptively soft voice, “I have a question, Senator Arkanis.”

Instantly, Arkanis’s full attention shifts back to the council (and maybe he sits a little straighter in his chair). “Yes, Starkiller?”

“To your knowledge, has the Senate been funding any power-intensive construction along the planets of the Outer Rim? Perhaps in Tanaii?”

Arkanis blinks at Starkiller, takes a quick glance at the rest of the council who watch him with silent, unreadable stares. In his entire career at the Senate, he has never heard of that system. “Not to my knowledge, no.”

“And do you know if the Senate has been hiring followers of the Sith to investigate this planets?”

The ‘Sith’ sound as familiar as Tanaii, scratching at a historical bit of trivia Arkanis doesn’t have time to remember at the moment. “No, I do not.”

Starkiller nods. “Thank you, Senator,” he says, and shifts in his chair again, away from Arkanis: the same silent sign of dismissal. Arkanis stands from his chair, gives the council a short nod, and takes his leave. The door shuts behind him, leaving him standing in an empty hall, tall umber walls and gleaming white tile. There are other offices here, and sometimes Arkanis can hear soft voices carrying down the corridor, but mostly he stands before the lift, eyes closed and waiting.

“Exciting, aren’t they.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Arkanis’s mouth. “As always.” He opens his eyes and looks aside to see the Jedi Knight standing beside him, dressed in his fitted brown tunic and his dark trousers, wavy hair pushed back from his face in that sort of just-landed, speeder-swept style. “What are you doing on this level, Ben? I thought paperwork wasn’t your style.”

“I took the stairs from the garage,” Ben says with a lopsided smile. “Just landed. I’m about to teach a class. You should come.”

“I think I’d distract you.” The lift appears and the doors peel open on the glass capsule; Arkanis steps in and Ben follows. “Lobby,” Arkanis says, and the lift starts to fall, the skyline shifting outside. He watches, gaze focused on the plain white skyscraper on the far end of the city, peaking out from the financial district and a proverbial stone’s throw from the Senate. Home away from home.

Ben steps up beside him. A hand rests at the small of Arkanis’s back. “Are you done for the day?”

“Not yet.” Arkanis keeps his hands at his side, keeping calm even as he catches the cinnamon scent of Ben’s aftershave; he’s standing so close. “I have to meet with the Chancellor.”

“Because he can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Arkanis snorts. “Are you asking for something, Ben?” Arkanis turns on his heel and opens his mouth to say something else when Ben kisses him while grabbing for his hips. Ben crowds him up against the lift wall as the city skyline disappears behind stone; Arkanis grabs the front of his tunic, fingers curled in roughspun hybrid gaberwool, and they don’t stop kissing until the lift starts to slow. Ten seconds—Ben pulls back, Arkanis watches his face—seven seconds—they let go of each other, fingers dragging on fabric—four seconds—Ben bites his lip, Arkanis forgets to breathe—

The doors open on the main lobby, the bustle of energetic padawans, roving Knights, and wide-eyed visitors.

“I need to discuss a mission with you,” Ben says as he steps out. “Political concerns. Wouldn’t want to upset a planet in someone else’s system, even if it is just scavenging.”

“I'll check my schedule.”

“See you tonight.”

“Do try to come at a reasonable hour.”

\--

Hux has been sitting (in an admittedly comfortable leather armchair) in the parlor of the hotel suite for three hours, planted in front of the wide windows facing the neon-lit waterfront, waiting and worrying and thinking about the reports he has to send to the economic bureau in three days. Surplus in mineral but a fall in production, he’ll get a sharp word from the ministry but likely not much else—

A pneumatic lock hisses. Hux looks over his shoulder to see the suite doors open up on Kylo Ren stepping in. They slide shut behind his back.

“You took your time,” Hux says as he glances down at the black bag Kylo carries by his side. “Did you find what you were looking for?” Kylo’s mask dips in a silent nod. “Good; come here.”

Kylo walks towards him, boots heavy on the floor; he drops the bag against the wall so he’s empty handed when he reaches Hux, and when he kneels between Hux’s knees he can slide both of his gloved hands along Hux’s thighs.

“Was it difficult to retrieve?” Hux asks as he reaches beneath Kylo’s jaw to find the catches on the helmet. The seal releases with a breath, and Hux lifts the mask away, watches as Kylo’s scarred face and helmet-hair come into view, and drops the helmet to the side. Kylo’s gaze is unwavering.

“This one was easier,” Kylo says, his hands sliding over Hux’s hips. “A furniture store.”

“So you took it?”

“I bought it.”

Hux smirks, dragging his thumb along the line of Kylo’s jaw. “Well, aren’t you civilized,” he says, and leans down for a kiss.

\--

Ben arrives at Arkanis’s door approximately fifteen minutes before Arkanis wants to go to bed; he’s already in his loose evening robe (dark green like the pines of his hometown, a present from back home) when Ben lets himself in, draped in an over-large black cloak that would cut a terrifying figure if it weren’t already so familiar.

(What confuses Arkanis more is the tunic, and how quickly Ben can have the pieces lying across the bedroom floor before Arkanis can say “morning subcommittee on mineral trade.”)

“Those old Jedi,” Ben murmurs darkly between kisses on Arkanis’s inner thigh, “they’re all fools, blinded by a thousand years of tradition. How many other things have survived for a thousand years without changing?”

“The Republic,” Arkanis supplies and gasps at the bite of Ben’s teeth, hard enough to bruise with that anger still simmering on the surface. “What—what is it, Ben,” he breathes, tangling his hand in dark hair as Ben’s lips brush over his cock, “are they sending you away on another mission?” Ben’s anger can sweep them both away if they’re not careful, a tidal wave of repressed passion Arkanis knows Ben shouldn’t have.

 _They fear me, they’re letting me stagnate, they won’t even look at me anymore_ , _they send me on errands to keep me busy, distracted,_ Ben’s thoughts echo in his own, barely loud enough for Arkanis to focus on over the heat of Ben’s mouth over his cock, taking him deep, _but I’ve found a better way to learn_.

 

Later that night, Arkanis stands by the bedroom window, nude, smoking a cigarette whose vapor curls out through the thin opening into the city air. Ben lies still on the bed, one hand arm tucked behind his head, and absolutely still: meditation, his favorite post-coitus activity.

“Perhaps I can ask the chancellor to short-list your name for his rolls.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “For the joint Republic-Council missions they run. It would keep you closer to the Core.”

“It would,” Ben murmurs.

“Would you like that?” Arkanis asks.

Ben doesn’t answer.

\--

Kylo wakes up to the stillness of the hotel room and the soft sound of Hux’s breathing, the rise and fall of his bare chest in the dim glow of the city. He lies there, watching Hux breathe and exist for a few minutes, focusing on how the Force hums around his life force and almost letting that lull him back to sleep, but there’s another dip in the Force in this room. It nags at his senses, humming with no sound and glowing with no light at the corner of his vision; ever the paragon of restraint, Kylo gets out of bed.

Snoke has told him - just once - not to investigate holocrons alone in the galaxy where Snoke cannot help him. These are ancient tokens with incredible, sometimes terrible power, and Kylo remembers the warning his master has always given him: be cautious, it could destroy you. (But he had said that about Luke, Hux, that girl; Kylo wonders if his master means to send him to his own destruction.)

He pads across the room in the nude and stops in the threshold between the bedroom and the parlor. Another look over his shoulder towards the bed - Hux is still sleeping - before finding the bag propped up against the wall. Kneeling down, he rummages around packages of sweets and local delicacies and glass bottles of massage oil until he can pull out the triangular prism, wrapped in soft, thin foam, the base not bigger than his palm.

Don’t activate it, he can hear his master’s warning already (and strangely, Luke’s as well), but Kylo finds the armchair in the parlor and settles into the cushions overlooking Coruscant, a city ignorant of his presence and the weight of his memories here. Those memories start to stir as he unwraps the prism, and Kylo lets that pain unfold—a collection of protocol droid nannies, the overwhelming press of life at galas and events where he was supposed to be the shining accomplishment of his parents, passed over for meetings or races or treaties or deals, and finally being plucked from this vibrant city-planet to study an ancient religion in the woods, more than reluctant, _dad why can’t i go home_ —

The faces of the prism glow red along the etched lines and arcs in the stone, as bright as his own anger, just like the others, as all he has to do is _want_ with a deep, selfish hunger for knowledge before the tip of the prism separates, hovering upwards. Inside, a scaffold of crystals glow like the plasma of his saber, and that is all Kylo sees before it takes hold of his consciousness, like closing his eyes and letting an old holovid play in his mind’s eye.

Red hair and freshly fallen snow, the iron taste of blood in his mouth, the hot sting of plasma through his heart, cinnamon cologne, snow in his palm, red hair framed by glowing chandeliers and the aroma of savory meats, cold and alone on a floor covered in ash and black dust, hot flames creeping up his arms, blackened fingers, breathing in and extending into the abyss—

“Kylo.”

The voice pulls him back. Kylo blinks. Hux stands over him, one hand braced against Kylo’s shoulder and pressing him back into the chair. Hux’s brows are drawn together in annoyance and confusion; Kylo keeps blinking up at him, vaguely aware that the labored breathing he hears is his own.

Still keeping one hand braced on Kylo’s shoulder, Hux brings his other hand up and brushes his thumb across Kylo’s cheek. “You were talking gibberish,” Hux says. “And now you’re crying.”

“I’m fine,” Kylo tries to argue, his voice cracking. Hux rolls his eyes.

“Put down your trinket and come back to bed. We’ll talk about what you’ve done to yourself in the morning.”

\--

The imperial-squad-turned-retrieval-group, twenty-one of his best men, shelters in a shallow cave of the granite mountain, three fires roaring and filling the air with stifling heat. Soldiers strip off snow gear and bags and weapons, talking to each other in short grunts and coarse lingo, and the Imperator lets his second manage them.

Instead, the Imperator stands at the mouth of the cave where the heat and the winter cold intersect and looks over the jagged ridge to the valley below, cut by a winding river that is straddled on the far side by a long, low temple topped by a single stone spire. Snow caps the spire just above a little yellow window, the only light for miles. He hadn’t expected anyone to still be at that temple, but no matter—he had enough soldiers to deal with priests or bandits, whoever happens to be there.

“Sir.” Phasma steps up to his side. “All soldiers accounted for. No injuries from the hike, but considering the terrain, that’s luck.”

“These are your luckiest soldiers, aren’t they,” the Imperator half-asks, looking over to his second in her silver armor and red cloak.

She gives him a knowing smile; it takes more than luck to be chosen for Hux’s missions. “They’ll give you more than luck, sir. Also,” she held out a comm device to him, rugged and square and simple, “a message from the emperor.”

The Imperator snatches the device from her hand and initiates the message, pressing frozen fingers against the screen, watches with his heart pounding in his throat as the official, gilded view of his emperor comes into view: Kylo’s draped across that one chaise carved out of marble in his personal chambers, black fur looped around his shoulders. A scarlet robe clings to his lean form, open enough to see the dark hair on his chest; Hux swallows hard and tries to focus on his words.

“...and the party is due to arrive in the citadel today. You said you would be here for the marriage, Hux. You gave me your word.” Hux almost replies to the video, but bites it back; this is a static message, and Kylo can’t hear him. (Or maybe he can - the Imperator remembers a piercing darkness to his eyes and harsh truth that he would never know the depths of Kylo’s power.) “As my imperator, you should be here, gift or no gift, I implore you to—”

The Imperator turns off the video and hands the comm device back to Phasma, avoiding looking at her face so she doesn’t look too closely at his. “This doesn’t change our plans.”

“We might miss the wedding, sir,” Phasma reminds him gently, just like she did when he first set out.

“Then let’s work quickly.” He rubs his gloved hands together, willing heat to come back to his fingers. “A couple hours’ rest tonight, that’s all.”

“Do you intend to rest as well, sir?” Phasma asks, her voice softer.

“Eventually,” the Imperator says with a dismissive wave of his hand. When he gets back to the citadel, having given his emperor this gift, he can rest as long as he needs.

\--

The week goes like this: Arkanis almost wakes up late because sleeping next to Ben relaxes him too much, he debates his way through three subcommittees, he attends his weekly Jedi Council briefing, he receives an anonymous box of sweets from planets on the other side of the galaxy, and now he sits in the chancellor’s office discussing his sector, galactic peace, and his own role in the Senate. A normal week; Arkanis has had daydreams about ending it with a glass of whiskey as he looks out the tiny window in his apartment, wrapped in a night robe as he enjoys quiet and solitude.

“And finally, chancellor,” Arkanis starts, leaning forward in his seat, “a note about the short-list of Jedi on loan to the Senate—”

The door to the chancellor’s office swings open and in walks Master Starkiller, his mouth a thin line in his dour expression, the brown cloak on his shoulders looking heavier than usual.

“Master Jedi,” the chancellor says as he and Arkanis both stand, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Starkiller looks between Arkanis and the Chancellor, then back. His eyes rest on Arkanis as he speaks, and Arkanis keeps his mind carefully blank; Ben has showed him this telepathic trick. Roses in his mother’s garden, kissed by morning dew; the half-finished scale model of a ship on his desk; his morning breakfast smoothie of chocolate and imported fruit.

That gaze moves away from him. “I was hoping to find you alone, Chancellor Plagueis, for some important matters,” Starkiller says.

“We’ll only be another ten minutes at the most, if you have the time to wait,” the chancellor explains with a little gesture of his hand to Arkanis, but Arkanis shakes his head.

“I can postpone our topics to next week, Chancellor,” Arkanis says instead, and buttons the front of his jacket in preparation to leave. “Master Starkiller clearly needs your time more than I. With your leave?” he asks, looking back at the chancellor, who nods. As Hux walks out of the office, he passes Starkiller just close enough to see the grey in his beard and the blue of his eyes, and something occurs to him in that split second: Starkiller knows. (But what, just that he hosts Ben when their schedules line up, or that they’ve seen the opera together, or that after three drinks each Arkanis gets to see a passion that—)

A glass of whiskey, that’s what he needs; Arkanis repeats this mantra all the way back to his apartment, until he can sit down in his stiff armchair and watch the crawling lights of speeder traffic across the orange sky (and wonder what planet Ben’s been sent to this time).

Minutes or hours into this meditation, his communication console beeps.

Arkanis pulls himself away from the now-starry night sky, his empty glass and half-empty bottle: one message from the chancellor.

ARKANIS: (it starts, because the Chancellor always calls the younger senators by their constituency, according to his particular philosophies and reputation debt)

IF YOU WERE CONCERNED, DON’T BE: YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WITH THE JEDI COUNCIL REMAIN THE SAME. HOWEVER, THE JEDI ARE INVESTIGATING THE JEDI KNIGHT BEN (FORMERLY KNOWN AS “BEN STARKILLER”). YOU HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS A POSSIBLE CONNECTION. EXERCISE CAUTION. REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE SEPARATE FROM THE SENATE, AND YOUR CAREER IS YOUR OWN TO PRESERVE.

They’re separate, yes, of course, Arkanis reminds himself as he steps back towards the bottle on the end table.

\--

When Hux wakes up far earlier than he plans, two empty glasses still sit on the nightstand where he and Kylo left them, but beyond that, he sees Kylo’s nude, pale form leaned up against the side of Hux’s desk, knees pulled up toward his chest and dark eyes towards him, glistening in the starlight. Flushed cheeks, uneven breathing, wet eyes—Hux sighs into his pillow again, then pushes himself to sit up, bedsheets pooling in his lap. “You’ve been crying again,” he tells Kylo, as if Kylo was unaware, “you, the most terrifying Force user in the galaxy. Crying in my cabin. And after you’ve slaughtered, what, forty rebels? Am I that terrible to look at?”

Kylo laughs, soft and hoarse but still a laugh as he covers his face with his hands. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Well, here I am, awake.” Hux raises a hand to rub his temple. “Awake and hungover.”

“You can go back to sleep.”

“As can you.”

Kylo drops his hands to his knees and he stares at Hux with that open, searching expression: watching his face instead of prying into his thoughts (Hux thinks and hopes). After a long moment, Kylo shakes his head. “...I’ll meditate instead.” Not the answer Hux is hoping for, but he gives his permission with a shrug of his shoulders. Kylo crawls from the desk to the small circular rug at the center of the room, sits cross-legged on the plush threads. Back straight, hands on his knees, eyes closed: he looks calm.

Instead of going back to sleep, Hux gets out of bed, ignoring the cool temperature of the artificial night in his cabin, and also steps over to the rug. Kylo remains still as Hux kneels behind him, doesn’t even pause his breathing as Hux’s arms wrap around his torso, skin to skin as they press back to chest. Kylo’s muscle tone always feels pleasingly firm in Hux’s embrace, and he spares himself a satisfied smirk against Kylo’s shoulder.

“Tell me about your nightmares,” Hux murmurs against Kylo’s skin. He feels Kylo take a deep breath, chest expanding out against his arms (and Hux wonders how hard he’d have to squeeze to stop those breaths, to keep Kylo right there on the edge).

“Sometimes I dream that I met you earlier, that you and I grew up together. I had a crown, and you were a soldier, and as a prince I could have you in my retinue, but we could never...I see this moment over and over, where we’re sitting in a courtyard full of snow, and you ask me what I think about ruling. What I think about all of the things around us in that palace. And I am speechless. I can't answer.”

Hux touches a soft kiss to the side of Kylo’s neck. He has listened to Kylo’s dreams before; this is not the most absurd one. “And why does that stand out to you?”

“Because in the dream I know it is the moment I fell in love with you.” That makes Hux still: love isn’t a word that they’ve traded, and Hux is sure neither of them intend on ever trading between their own agendas and ambitions. They’ve both been fine with it, Hux has told himself and tells himself now, and that’s enough to keep himself carefully separated from that black hole of questioning, wondering, and baseless wishing.

“What else do you see?” Hux asks; it’s the only question he trusts himself to ask.

Another deep breath; the muscles of Kylo’s back flex for a moment. “I see you leaving me, and I am begging you to return.”

\--

The roof of the forest temple smolders with a bright orange glow against the night sky, and out of the growing flames limps an old man. Heavy robes of faded greens and blues drag along the rough stone ground around the temple, catching on fallen tiles and the edges of old steps pushed up by tree roots.

Imperator Hux waits patiently at the threshold of the bridge, Phasma at his side and his troops behind him, his hands tucked into the warm pockets of his great coat. His legs are cold below the knee, boots soaked. Pine needles stick out of his hair and gunpowder smears his cheeks. His ears ring from the shells they had launched and from the retaliatory blasts out of the monastery, crackling beams of red scoring the frozen earth and ten of his men before one well-aimed shell had taken out the tower. 

Now he has to retrieve his prize (while he can still walk).

“I don’t have all evening, priest,” the Imperator calls out to the old man, taking a few steps forward, his boots crunching in the snow. “I hope you have the relic with you, and I won’t have to sift through the ash to find it.”

The priest stops a couple meters in front of Hux and spreads his arms wide, hands empty, cutting a large black outline against the flames. Feathers and stones hang from twine around his neck.“I carry no relics. I will deliver to you no power, only words of caution.”

“I’ve already heard the warnings,” the Imperator says, bored.

“And you have not heeded them, so I will repeat: the power you seek will pull you apart instead of bring you closer; it will drain your strength, not enhance it; you will face an inescapable destruction of your being, the consequences of which you cannot imagine.”

“If that were the case, then how can any of these warnings affect me?” The Imperator asked, taking another step forward and drawing his blaster pistol from his belt. “Have you ever seen these consequences with your own eyes?”

“I have seen it through the Force,” the old man says with a tremor in his voice. The Imperator believes him; he just doesn't care. He raises his pistol and shoots the old man square in the chest. The man crumples in a heap of tattered robes. The flames crackle in the silence while the Imperator holsters his pistol.

“Search the body,” the Imperator orders. “And the ashes, once the burning subsides.”

“You're certain it will survive, sir?” Phasma asks.

The Imperator toes the dead body of the priest, rolling it over in the snow. “If it doesn't, then I'll have to find a better present for His Majesty.”

 

In the ashes they find it, smoldering in the ruins of a wooden chest. The Imperator drops to his knees and drags it out of the grey ash with his bare hands; it singes his gloves, too hot to hold even through the leather, but he admires it as it burns: the cut, etched sides and the twining patterns are just as he had imagined. It'll make an excellent present.

\--

Arkanis walks out of his meeting with the Jedi council and Ben is there, leaning up against the frame of a window in his Jedi drab, staring out at the skyline and pretending that Arkanis wasn’t stepping right up behind him.

“Where did you go this time?” Arkanis asks, hearing the chancellor’s warning his his thoughts - and ignoring it.

Ben’s gaze doesn’t move from the city skyline. “It’s better if you don’t know, Senator.”

“Is it?” Arkanis reaches out to touch Ben on the shoulder, and the Jedi flinches back, pulls away from the window and steps back into the shadow of the hallway. Arkanis takes a step into his space, and Ben takes another step back. Another step forward, another step back—they play this game until Arkanis crowds Ben back against the opposite wall of the corridor (though Arkanis suspects that this is something Ben wants, thus allows, or else he’d get a Force push into the floor).

“I am being told to stay away from you, Jedi Knight,” Arkanis says in a terse tone, looking Ben in the eye and watching him look away. “Care to explain why?”

A muscle tightens in Ben’s jaw; there’s enough of a beat between them that Arkanis believes for a brief heartbeat that Ben might actually tell him something close to the truth. Then Ben steps around him and goes for the lift without another word. Arkanis follows, but doesn’t push; they stand by the lift doors and wait for the capsule. When the doors part, they enter the capsule. The doors shut again.

"Lobby," Arkanis calls out.

"Library," Ben amends after a beat. 

Halfway down the trip, Ben says: “...I can tell you tonight.”

“If I’m free,” Arkanis points out.

“If you’re free,” Ben agrees. “And you aren’t writing trade agreements for backwater agro planets.”

“That’s part of my job, Jedi, not entertaining you every time you happen to be in the city.”

“Don’t think that because you’re a politician that you’re somehow superior to my company, Arkanis. If you don’t want to see me, don’t let me in.”

“If I knew what I was letting in. What else are you, besides a Jedi? A gambler? A smuggler?”

It’s Ben’s turn to crowd Arkanis; he feels the press of the curved glass wall at his back. “Is that the worse I can be?” Ben asks in a low voice; Arkanis can see the numbers tick lower and lower over his shoulder.“Would you care if I were?”

“Don’t ask ridiculous questions, Ben,” Arkanis snaps back at him, watching the numbers on the wall instead of Ben’s face. With his luck, the doors will open on them just like this, twice as incriminating. “Does it seem like I’ve ever cared what you are? You’re a Jedi, which is worse for you than it is for me, you fool; nobody cares who I’m fucking but your illustrious masters will certainly care if you’re fucking me—”  
  
Ben shoves him back against the lift wall and kisses him so hard that it’s a rough clash of teeth, Arkanis gasping for breath against the sting at the back of his head, unable to push back Ben because he’s so strong, his grip on Hux’s arms are so tight.

 _Ding!_ The lift slows to a stop. Ben jerks back from Arkanis completely and stands there on the other side of the lift, breathing hard with a pink flush on his pale cheeks. “They’ll care,” he says, breathless, “but I won’t.”

“Don’t be reckless,” Arkanis warns him (for whose sake, he doesn't know).

“You’re not my master, either, Senator,” Ben tells him, then turns on his heel and leaves the lift, leaving Arkanis there to fix the alignment of his robes and the state of his hair before the lift reaches the lobby.

\--

Hux isn’t sure where the presentation goes wrong: they had started their joint report with good news about two newly “colonized” planets along with a retrieval of old artifacts and Force-sensitives. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Snoke asks about the holocron directly, and Kylo says, “No, Master, I did not find it in the city.”

The bold and blatant lie stuns Hux into blank, silent disbelief. Snoke’s hologram leans forward, eyes narrow into lopsided slits, “You did not find it, or you were not able to get it?”

“Someone else purchased the relic before I was able to.”

“Then you saw it.”

“I did.”

“And you let it slip away.”

Kylo swallows hard, but he does not shrink from the hologram looming over him. Hux can’t look away from the disaster about to unfold in front of him. “Yes, the relic escaped me.”

Why are you doing this, Hux wants to ask, and he almost does when Kylo staggers back, wincing, then goes to one knee on the slick tile, trembling as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders, breathing shallow and sharp like there’s a knife stuck right under his ribs. This isn’t the first time Hux has seen Kylo punished from afar, but now he wants to reach out, to help him, to get control over the situation by telling Snoke that’s enough—

Then Kylo fights to look up, catches Hux’s gaze and holds it with another quiet, determined plea that slides right into Hux’s own thoughts: _not now_. That stays his tongue and he watches as the punishment subsides and Kylo struggles back to his feet, head bowed.

“Thank you, Master,” Kylo forces out, his voice tight, fists clenched tight at his sides. “I will continue to look for the relic. It couldn’t have gotten far.”

In the empty hall outside of the conference room, Hux places a hand on Kylo’s shoulder, then tightens his grip when Kylo flinches, sags against the wall for support. “Do you ever plan on giving him the relic?” Hux asks.

Kylo shakes his head, his eyes turned towards the grated ceiling and the fluorescent lights. “No.”

\--

Arkanis stands to leave his weekly meeting with the Jedi Council when the door slides open and Ben stands there in the doorway, his hands tucked into the long sleeves of his brown robe.

“Ben?” Arkanis finds himself asking on instinct, eyebrows raising at the sight of the Jedi in the council room at the same time as his own official business; they usually don’t cross paths unless they want to. Outside of work.

But Ben does not greet him back; the Jedi stares at him with wide, dark eyes, before his gaze flickers to each and every one of the Masters on the council. “No,” he says, stepping back; all the Masters rise from their seats, and Arkanis feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Ben,” Starkiller begins to say, stepping forward. His hand slowly starts to reach towards Ben, who takes another step back. “Don’t try to—”

“No, Uncle!” Ben shouts, and Arkanis feels the hate and anger slam him right in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs. A few of the other masters recoil, too. “Of all the promises you’ve made me—” But Starkiller takes steps towards Ben, hand still outstretched.

“Ben, find your peace,” Starkiller says, his voice steady even against the rage coming off Ben in waves, more than just his voice and the hard lines around his eyes. “Ben—”

“No.” Something hits Arkanis in the stomach and forces him to brace against the chair he just stood out of. More of the masters recoil where they stand, but a handful of them draw their light sabers now, advancing behind Starkiller towards the door. Ben runs. Starkiller runs after him, disappearing into the hall. The entire council rushes to follow.

Arkanis stares at the door and the empty room, then slowly lowers himself back down into the chair, finding in himself the will to breathe.

 _Chancellor,_ he writes on the transport car back to his apartment, _my apologies: I won’t be able to attend our usual meeting._ His heart clenches and he just wants to lean his head back and breathe, exhale the worry out of his soul.

Arkanis steps into the apartment, breathes, and smells a faint hint of cinnamon. He darts into the study, the bedroom, hoping to find the origin of that familiar aftershave, but there’s nothing: his furniture is untouched, the apartment is quiet.

He sits in the armchair by the window, slumps into the cushions, and closes his eyes on the twilight hanging over the city, lights from traffic twinkling at him through the window. He had always known this...association would be temporary, a minor fling until either his own career took off or Ben came to his senses as a Jedi Knight, but he had imagined it to happen quietly: they’d be sitting at dinner, or in bed, and Hux would declare he has a diplomatic assignment in the Outer Rim. At that moment, Ben would huff a dramatic sigh and declare that he was dedicating himself to the Jedi Arts anyway, and they’d mutually agree that, while entertaining, this thing they had been fostering was nothing but a way to pass their idle time.

Not in public, not in a flurry of shouts and a stampede of the entire Jedi council rushing after him. What would they do with him if they caught him, Arkanis wonders, then dismisses the thought from his mind after his stomach turns over.

A drink, that’s what he needs, so he opens his eyes and rises to his feet—and spots a holochip on the end table, set just off center to draw his attention and annoyance. When he picks it up and turns it over in his hand, Arkanis doesn’t recognize it, and there is not a single thing in this flat that he doesn’t recognize, right down to the cinnamon scent still lingering in the air. Holding it in his open palm, Arkanis activates it and watches, mouth dry, as he sees Ben’s blue hologram pop up in front of him, robed and relaxed.

“If you’re watching this,” Ben starts, “then I’ve probably run off planet, haven’t I? And I didn’t have time to say good-bye. I hope you’re watching this somewhere private, so they can’t hear that the best fuck I’ve ever had—” He stops, laughing softly, and Hux smiles, too, in spite of himself. “It was good, what we had. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve run, and maybe I don’t want to end it yet.” Ben shrugs. “I’ve fixed some coordinates you might find me at, if you’ve got the time. I know the Senate’s important to you, Arkanis, but take a step back. Look at the system they’ve made.”

“Look at the fiasco you’ve caused,” Arkanis whispers to the hologram, then shuts it off and turns it over; a line of coordinates appears on the tiny screen. He pockets it.

\--

The empire ruled by the Imperator’s young emperor stretches across two stellar arms of the galaxy, opposite where he had been treasure hunting. The trip is long, days of looking out the ship portholes and seeing the white streaks of hyperspace, Hux has enough time to stare at the ashy, pyramidal relic sitting in his quarters and wonder whether it was worth being so long away from his emperor.

But, he rationalizes to himself for the fiftieth time, the power resting in this relic will let his emperor rule with power, strength, and fear. Kylo will absorb the power etched into this stone and he can live forever, or at least longer the natural, motal energy is squeezed from the Imperator’s common bones. That’s all he wants, Hux tells himself. All he wants is to see his emperor live a long life, and to watch that power unfold across the galaxy.

Phasma watches him from a distance, no doubt wary about his judgement.

\--

Ben looks up from the controls of his stolen ship to the barren, rocky planet below. The Force sunk deep and dark around this planet, just as the old records and his own meditation had told him: it pulls him in like the planet’s gravity, stirs the latent anger he always tries so desperate to ignore. Now, however, he lets his control relax; he’s so far away from Coruscant now, away from the Jedi Council, away from his uncle.

(But far away from Hux Arkanis, and Ben hoped beyond hope that Hux had received his message, and would keep it to himself.)

\--

The citadel unfolds slowly, sparkling steel and glass shining brilliant in the dappled sunlight against the grey granite mountain peaks wet with the spring melt. The Imperator always marvels at the sprawl of the great metropolis, carved so intricately with the mountain that it’s impossible to tell where the buildings meet stone. Now, the city is aglow with the evening lights up and down wide stone boulevards and in the windows of taverns and houses, but the cluster of civilization along the edges of the citadel pale in comparison to the palace on the center plateau, a piercing obsidian palace blazing with orange light out of every window and door.

\--

Ben circles slowly over the crumbling stone city, marveling at how high the ruins still reach into the sky, casting long shadows over cracked roads strewn with boulders and twisted metal. The obsidian palace stands stark over it all, surrounded by a bleak stone courtyard half covered in snow and overrun with gnarled black trees hunced low to the ground; it’s the only flat place in the city wide enough for his ship. Ben sticks the landing a little rougher than he wants, and he lets himself blame the council and his uncle Luke, because if he had more time to practice flying maybe he could work this ship like a true pilot.

Clambering out the ship and onto the courtyard, the wind hits him first: ice that bites through his skin into his nerves, and he struggles, shivering, to draw the Force around him to keep warm. When he stops shivering, the shield woven thinly around his being so he can at least breathe in the gusts, he turns towards the great black arches of the palace and starts to walk.

\--

The courtyard is lined with glowing orbs, white and sandy gold. At least, Hux thinks to himself, we haven’t missed the wedding entirely.

He crosses the garden with Phasma shadowing his footsteps, still wary, not entirely agreed to coming to the palace like this. Give yourself a day, she had told him, saying something about the exhaustion of interstellar travel and treasure hunting and how the emperor would likely still be in the depths of this event, the biggest one yet of his young rule.

And Hux had looked her in the eye and refused. Kylo needed this relic sooner rather than later, and if he had to step right in the middle of festivities to do that, then so be it.

\--

The great hall is surprisingly still and dark despite its open windows, and the pillars seem to extend for miles towards the dais at the end of the hall. His boots scuff against charcoal ash as he walks forward; black burns lick up the pillars and obscure the pink granite texture underneath.

As Ben walks, he side steps hunks of twisted, melted metal and large boulders of etched stone laid on their side, the carved symbols just barely legible if he traces their grooves with his fingers.

\--

“My imperator,” Kylo says from his throne on the dais, and the Imperator feels his heart swell as he drinks in Kylo's regal form: draped in the finest white silks with a white circlet sitting on his dark hair, the kyber crystals held in the metal reflecting the torchlight from the room. “You have returned to this court at last.” And later than I would have liked, Kylo doesn’t say but Hux can see it in the thin line of his mouth, the tight muscle at the top of his jaw.

A short, slender woman sits on the lesser throne next to his, draped in robes of gold, but Hux tries to ignore her and her searching gaze. “I bring a present for your wedding, Your Majesty, something far more useful than any other gift on your table.”

“Including the new star fleet promised to me by the Duchy of Tona?” Kylo asks, skeptical, but with a smirk on his face; he’s more willing to play the Imperator's game than the court: a glittering collection of dukes and duchesses and ambassadors, descending into din of low murmurs, the soft jangle of jewelry shifting with cupped hands and funneled whispers. “By all means, show us this gift, Imperator, even if such ceremony was three days ago.”

\--

At the very top of the dais, after moving aside two heavy stone blocks, Ben spots it: a small pyramidal object tipped onto one of its faces, half submerged in a pile of ash but looking untouched by all of it. He can already feel the dark side power.

His training would have him run and quarantine this ruin; his instincts would have him bring just run. But he fights it, drawn by rebellious curiosity, and he crouches down by the relic to brush ash and grit off its three faces. This one feels different than the others he's found, heavier in his hand, hotter against his spirit, it's hard to breathe—

_A thousand eyes rest on the three of them, the imperator, the emperor, his bride. No one dares breathe as the imperator unwraps his gift, a stone relic, a pyramid to fit in the palm of one’s hand, and if the imperator were not so distracted by his emperor he would see the look on the bride’s face._

_“This is yours,” he says, kneeling, holding the relic above his head in holy offering; he is in no position to stop the bride as she leaps forward from the throne, grabs a stave from one of her guards, and lunges, knocking the pyramid across the floor mosaics and scoring the general’s shoulder with the blade tip._

_The hall erupts; guards rush against guards. The imperator rises from his throne and the imperator lurches forward to go to him to protect him, but that stave finds him again: this time through the shoulder, driving him down so hard he’s pinned to the floor along the length of the stave. His yell is lost in the flurry, but he catches the gaze of his emperor, just as the old, bald vizier steps out from behind the throne and drives a white plasma blade through the emperor’s chest, scorching his lung and heart both, before letting him drop to the ground._

_Their eyes are level, wide with shock and pain; they see each other’s blood on the tile. They see the vizier bend down to slide his pale, spidery fingers over the fallen relic, and beneath the chaos he mutters, “She’ll be the better pupil.” The carvings of its many faces start to glow a deep, bright orange, pulsing with the power the general had professed._

_The chaos continues; they remain between stampedes of armored feet and glittering dresses, cattle desperate to leave the slaughter, before the pyramid expands out of its own outline into jagged fragments, and heat consumes the room._

\--

The last place in the galaxy Arkanis wants to be is in this mysterious ruin, chasing after a hope, and yet here he is, standing in an obsidian archway scanning for someone he’s not certain he wants to see.

There, on the dais, a figure wrapped in brown wool huddled around the remnants of a dying fire that still smolders against the morning freeze. “Ben?” Arkanis calls out, and the figure stirs; Arkanis rushes forward before he can stop himself.

Unfurling from the brown robe, Ben peers up at him as Arkanis steps close, his eyes are glassy and dark, underlined by dark purple rings on pale cheeks. Arkanis frowns, kneeling next to him. “Have you been ingesting something?” he asks.

“No,” Ben croaks, not entirely convincing, but Arkanis figures that maybe he’s not asking the right questions. He reaches out to brush his fingers against Ben’s cheek; the skin’s cold and clammy beneath his fingertips.

“What are you doing here, then? Starving yourself? Hoping to freeze yourself for posterity? Why would you lead me here?”

“Because.” Ben swallows hard and reaches up to grab his hand, misses, curls his fingers around Hux’s sleeve instead. “I thought it was--abandoned--quiet--we could…”

“Both freeze to death in this ruin?” Arkanis deadpans. He shakes his head and pulls up on Ben’s arm a little. “Come, there are better planets in which to live as a fugitive.” Ben gets to his feet, or tries; he falters and Arkanis catches him, grip tight on his arm.

“They’re going to find me anyway,” Ben whispers as he steadies himself on his feet; he still doesn’t let go of Hux’s sleeve. “No matter where I go, they’ll find me...my uncle will find me. The bond...” Arkanis has heard about this before, from Ben and from stories, about training bonds between Jedis and their padawans, but he doubts that it functions like a tracking beacon.

“I know some planets where they would never find you,” Arkanis says, his voice low. “Even on Arkanis, they couldn’t search every cave in the forest; you could disappear for years there. A century if you wanted.” And I’d know where you were, Arkanis doesn’t say, but there’s a weak smile that crosses Ben’s mouth that makes him think it still comes through.

“No,” he says, and for a moment Arkanis thinks he’s just being his usual stubborn self when he adds, “no, they already found me.”

Arkanis raises his other hand to cup Ben’s chin, gripping a little too hard. “How do you know that?”

“I can feel them,” Ben says, and he casts a distant gaze over Hux’s shoulder, as if he expects them to appear in the hall at any moment. Hux feels that gnawing sense of uselessness growing in the pit of his stomach, like when he had watched the council rush after him so many days ago.

“If they’re here, Ben, then we need to get you off planet, my ship is--”

“Already found. They’ve been watching you, too.” Ben’s eyes shift and he looks directly at Arkanis with all of his focus now, and when Arkanis stares into the black of those eyes, he feels like the planet is slowly crumbling out beneath his feet. “All I wanted was to see you again, Senator. That’s all I need.”

“Nonsense,” Hux tries to say; his voice cracks. “One time is never enough for you.”

Ben smiles, something sly and playful and weary. “You’re right,” he admits, and kisses Arkanis in that needy, consuming pull that Hux Arkanis can’t pull away from even when he thinks he hears footsteps rushing into the hall. When Ben pulls away, he pushes something into Arkanis’ hand, small and pointy and covered in black grit. “Take this,” he whispers, and Arkanis fumbles to tuck it into his parka before the footsteps grow deafening through the hall.

\--

“I can’t stand to make the same mistakes, Hux, it’s driving me mad!” Kylo shouts from his chair by the office window, head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. "It's happening again, the same trust, the same masters, every time I see them I see _us_ —"

Hux sits in the chair pulled close to Kylo's side. “You have to toss this, Ren,” Hux says as he squeezes Kylo’s shoulder a little too hard to be only comforting. “It’s compromising you, and it’s inconveniencing me.” Hux has lost count of the nights now where he has woken up to Kylo shivering or shaking or crying or screaming, and the nightmares are always the same, Kylo says. He sees them tangled in a million different lives and each one is a maddening failure.

“No,” Kylo refuses, again. “I won’t give it to him. You don’t understand, all these visions I have are—”

“Aren’t worth what little peace we can have in the present,” Hux snaps. His hand slides to the back of Kylo’s neck, squeezes again; he takes a slow breath before continuing. “He’s not going to stop asking for this relic, and if you don’t intend to give it back, what are you going to do?”

Kylo keeps his head down. Hux lets him think, but the longer that silent contemplation continues the wilder, more fantastical his ideas become--Hux almost reaches the end of his own patience when Kylo takes a breath.

“Let’s bring it to him,” he says quietly. “Whenever you have the resources to get us to the citadel.”

 

Phasma looks at him when he gives the order to change coordinates. Hux simply gives her a nod. 

 

“We’ll arrive at the citadel in twelve hours,” Hux tells him at dinner. “It’s best if we both try to find some rest tonight.”

“Agreed,” Kylo says before he takes a sip of his wine, actually meaning his agreement, now of all times. When he lies down next to Hux, when he watches Hux’s face relax into a calm state of sleep, Kylo fully intends to join him - except he knows what happens when he closes his eyes. Time reaches out to drag him down into its nonlinear labyrinth, giving him answers he didn’t ask for among faces he finds all too familiar.

He knows how close he was to being a Jedi, and now he knows in his core what an abysmal failure that would have been, following blindly his uncle to the light of the Force, and now he sees it again: a bare stone cell with stark white light, and himself, disgraced, within it.

_“What will they do with you?” The senator asks, leaned so close to the bars that Ben could reach out and touch him, if he knew that wouldn’t take him away._

_“What they do with everyone, Senator,” Ben deadpans, and even to his own ears that sounds fatalistic, helpless, but there’s a certain comfort in knowing the finality of this._

_“And that is?” The senator is so ignorant._

_“Separate me from the Force.”_

_“Is that it? Then what?”_

_Ben gives him a grim smile. Then what? As if there were any existence still available to him without the Force, so woven into his very spirit his heart would probably stop once it was done. But he plays along, for the senator’s sake. “Maybe I’ll be a smuggler.”_

_“Or a pilot.”_

_“Why not both?”_

Kylo turns over in bed, desperate for some reprieve from lives he doesn’t own, destinies he doesn’t want. When he reaches out into the Force, he grasps some respite in the darkness, the inky coolness of the void, but the moment he relaxes he falls prey to those visions again, this time from the senator’s eyes, sitting in a windowless room under escort with a monitor to view.

_The senator watches on the screen as Ben is led out amongst the Jedis, in a room that looks just as barren and dark as the prison beneath the temple. They’re saying something, words that don’t register in the senator’s ears despite the fact they speak Standard. He worries, silently; he fears something he can’t fathom. How will they do this, he wonders, how can they separate Ben from the Force when he is so--_

_He sees the blue and green glow of multiple light sabers. He lurches forward in his chair, breathing a soft “no” as they approach Ben, and he knows in the pit of his stomach that they’re going to sever more than just his connection, they--_

_One take an overhead swing at Ben, defenseless, and Ben simply disappears, a heap of robes on the ground, and the senator sags back in his seat, numb except for a soft kiss on his cheek and a squeeze at his shoulder that feels hot like the desert sun, fleeting like a desert rain._

Kylo takes a deep breath and wills himself to sleep, made easier by Hux’s warm hand lingering on his spine.

* * *

“What is it, Ren?” Hux asks again his voice echoing in the obsidian hall, this time with his hand sliding over Kylo’s shoulder, enough pressure to focus Kylo’s mind on the present.

“This is where we’ve been before,” Kylo says, vaguely aware that the look on Hux’s face signals disbelief and a fair bit of worry. “I won’t make the same mistakes. Not here.” Not amongst the blackened tile, the lingering memories of fire on his cheeks or cold resignation in his gut.

“Then what?” Hux asks in a hushed tone. “We can’t turn back, he already knows we’re here, and I’d like us both to be whole after this.”

Kylo looks up at the vaulted black ceiling, at Hux, at the beckoning chasm of the spiraling staircase, and then finally to the holocron in his hand. “...I’ll use this. It has enough power to - ”

“To destroy you,” Hux finishes, deadpan. “That’s hardly an acceptable solution, Ren.”

“It’s better than what has been done.”

“Did you ever ask my help in any of your visions? In your nightmares, do you ever have my support?”

Kylo opens his mouth, because surely it must have happened, and yet--he can’t recall. “...it was always too late.”

“And is it too late now?”

“I don’t know.”

Hux rolls his eyes. “Answer me this: is there anything I can do to prevent you from turning to ash? Act as an overflow, perhaps?” Kylo’s brow furrows. “Don’t act like it’s a far-fetched idea, Ren; you’ve said before that the Force is part of all life, not just the Jedi. Here I am, alive. Willing, for some reason.”

“What if it kills us both?”

Hux gives a grim smile. “Then apparently we can try again later.” His hand shifts, sliding over the holocron Kylo keeps tucked in his arm. “I want your nightmares to cease. I want your nights to be calm again. I want to watch you take the galaxy in my name, and I want you to rule it with me. I’ll fight a thousand battles to see us above lesser men and weaker systems, because if that is not my destiny then I’d rather die in a blaze like a star than bother with groveling any longer.”

The holocron glows red along its etched inlays, exuding a different side of the darkness than what Kylo remembers, and he’s so wrapped up in the passion of Hux’s words he almost can’t breathe. The edges of the holocron start to pull apart, this time the glow a blinding blue, striking out from the center as power starts to rush through his veins. “What if I hurt you?” he asks as he feels it crowding out his consciousness.

Hux snorts. “We hurt each other. How would this be different?”

\--

Blue burns into white and filling the space of Snoke’s receiving hall until that was all he could see behind his eyelids. Shrieks pierce his ears, but it could be himself; his entire body resonates with energy and his life force expands out, out, out, until Hux whispers in his ear, “stay,” and he’s dragged back into his own skin.

“Stay with me,” Hux says when Kylo opens his eyes, coughing hard on dust in his throat as he’s sprawled across Hux’s lap. Where there had been shelves of books and stone desks and reagents and the looming presence of his former master now was just a wasteland of white ash, all across the floor and the walls and the ceiling. Hux is covered in it too, dusting the black fabric of his jacket and his pale cheeks, turning his red hair an ugly color of mud. “Phasma saw the explosion, most likely, she’ll be here…”

Kylo focuses on breathing, seeing the puffs of dust in front of his eyes, and the heavy pyramid stone in his hand.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

“Are you done meditating?” Hux asks, and Kylo opens his eyes. Hux stands by the mirror, adjusting his outfit for the ball with the Senate, thirty minutes from now.

The vessel by which two empires say hello, Hux had told him when Kylo had made a face. Hux's First Order (of Collective Star Systems and Unincorporated Peoples) had conversed with the Republic plenty of times with destroyers, blasters, and sabers (all mysteriously stronger than they should have been) and it was only that combined power that made this amicable greeting possible.

Kylo shifts forward onto his knees, crawls closer to the edge of Hux’s white cloak, then stands slowly, one hand following black, ferrometal-embroidered lining of the cloak until his hand can curve over Hux’s shoulder and the silver buckles connecting the cloak to Hux’s white jacket. “Are you done preening?” Kylo asks, smirking faintly, and he sees Hux roll his eyes in the full-length mirror before them.

“Maybe.” Hux gestures to a circlet sitting, cushioned, on the dresser: a twisted loop of white songsteel interlaced with small translucent kyber crystals that flash red or blue or green if Kylo looks at it in the right light. It had taken him six months to gather and cut just the right crystals for this gift. “Hand me that.”

Picking up and handing over the circlet, Kylo watches as Hux gingerly sets it on his red hair, tilting it to rest just above his ears and across the top edge of his forehead. He can’t help but stare, at admiring how exquisitely powerful he looks in this reflection.

“What made you pick this design? It’s a little fanciful, even for your imagination,” Hux says, turning his head left, then right; the crystals catch the lamplight around the mirrors.

“I remembered it from my visions,” Kylo says softly, sliding his hand around Hux’s hip, stepping close and brushing his lips against the outer shell of Hux’s ear. “You were mine, then.”

Hux scoffs. “Were?” He pushes Kylo to arms length, looks up and down Kylo's tailored robes of black accented with vibrant reds, pinned with silver buttons, loose enough to hide the belt and the lightsaber at his hip. Hux picks dust off his shoulder, making him immaculate for their show of power. “Didn’t you learn anything from your visions? I’ve always been yours.”

 

* * *

[[the imperator and his prince]](https://67.media.tumblr.com/34037110a051a2ea5ef5bffb40a98601/tumblr_o80vjhSCVp1u4pmfyo5_1280.jpg)  
[[the senator and the knight]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/afcb06b03c9b9cdce6e6992068c3d03d/tumblr_o80vjhSCVp1u4pmfyo2_1280.jpg)  
[[Kylo and Hux]](https://67.media.tumblr.com/0c96175a4ae42726a5f600d153c6c714/tumblr_o80vjhSCVp1u4pmfyo1_1280.jpg)  
[[the white cape]](https://67.media.tumblr.com/3b46c3184de50e750d9864c854f9c562/tumblr_o80vjhSCVp1u4pmfyo3_1280.jpg)

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [growtear](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Growtear/pseuds/Growtear)/[aw16st](http://aw16st.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thank you for reading this.
> 
> One particular song that dogged me while I was writing this, and got twisted up in that weird inspiration-association loop, was the song ["Past Lives" by BØRNS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cux2qJjApGA). Give it a listen, if you can.
> 
> For updates on other things I write, follow me on [tumblr](http://cutequirk.tumblr.com).


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